Family "glue"

[seeker]

Some of ours..

Saturday night telly (or a film when there's no Dr Who or Predator or I'd Do Anything) with home made pizza.

Pancakes for breakfast on Sundays.

Growing our own potatoes.

General family meeting/debrief on Thursday evening (only night when nobody has an activity) so everyone can talk about anything followed by Uno.

Broadstairs Folk Festival.

Always making all birthday cards.

Daddy gets a lie in on Sundays but needs to be pestered every 15 minutes by someone offering him a cup of tea.

Mummy always cries at everything - baby photos, little socks, I'd Do Anything....and has to be brought tissues.

All particularly brilliant drawings, painting, stories etc are sent immediately to Grandma.

We eat every evening meal together, cooked by me and DS (2.7)!
Lots of tickling and wrestling "fights"
DS sometimes climbs in with us on a weekday morning
Lots of running/playing and building sandcastles on the beach - every sat and sun regardless of weather! We are super lucky that the beach is 2 mins walk from home
Lots of cooking and baking
Visit my parents and DH's father every weekend with DCs, we do one on Sat and one on Sun.
Saturday night DH "cooks" tea (cheese on toast) so I can watch Dr Who!
Dh baths DS so that they have time for just the two of them

Loads and loads of kisses, cuddles and I love you

All pretty mundane stuff but it helps us make time for each other, and have time out from each other too

What a lovely thread!

Ours are-

lunch every sunday with grandparents and uncles (and anyone else who comes along)

Dr Who every saturday (with dd1 insisting she watches even though she hides behind a pillow on the sofa every time)

Bedtime story for two youngest ones ever night.

Game of cards with eldest one most nights

Croissants and pain an chocolat every saturday for breakfast

I take great exception to the great sport of badminton being called 'poofing around'.

Played properly, it can be rather exhausting I'll have you know.

How lovely

Really got me thinking this one. Our two boys are only little (3.5 and 6 months) but here's where we're at

Everyone into our bed for half an hour first thing in the morning before the day starts properly

Daft little sayings and nicknames for each other (DS1 has his own for us already )

Family bath times every night

Thursdays (mummys day off) is always family day - trip to soft play or swimming followed by lunch out and a lazy afternoon

All meals together at the table

Have made a note of lots of others on this thread and will be trying to make them our own as the boys get older. Family glue - fantastic

this thread always reminds me of the simpsons. 'it's not your glue, it's family glue'.

ours are indoor picnics when its raining too much to go outside

watching you've been framed with ds and my dad

always asking if you can smell the sea yet 2 minutes after leaving for a trip to the coast

ds jumping on dh and pulling out his chest hair to wake him on a sunday morning

most of ours are things i did with my dad when i was small

we do sandwich cuddles too! me and dh are bread, girls argue over who is jam and butter

picnic tea on rug on floor in front of tv (hightlight of the week fof them)

dh makes a den under the table and they pretend they are at the cinema in the dark, complete with little bags of sweets for pick n mix

ballet and then visit to the farm on saturday to see the lambs and pigs

oh, and when it is voting day, we walk down to the polling station and they are allowed a jelly snake, about 2ft long from the sweet shop

when I do the school run, they sing space, space, space, space, WE WANT OUR SPACE, over and over again until they see if our car park space is free

he does my head in but is kind of cute at the same time

Message withdrawn

Music festivals
Dancing madly to folk music (esp Show Of Hands and the Levellers)
Borrowing BIL's purple VW camper for the weekend/a festival
Out on the narrow boat for a day/weekend
Camping
Film night and homemade pizza
Walking/trekking
Bike trips
Lunch once a fortnight with Great Grandma
Grandma and Grandad's every Thursday for spoiling
A gingerbread man on Saturday (one each)
Walks on the beach and sharing chips out of the paper afterwards
Throwing a rugby ball around
Picnics
Doctor Who under the duvet
Co-sleeping
Breastfeeding

Made up stories in bed for the dcs
Family lie ins in our bed at the weekend
Picnic breakfasts in local park in the summer
Cycling to nearby pick your own strawberries
Sat on sofa together every night drinking milk and watching Cbeebies
Treasure hunts at easter and for advent calendar
Names that only I call the dcs (they won't let anyone else use them)

Like the idea of a family debrief when they get a bit older.

Spag bol dins, one of the only meals we have to eat at the table. Me & DP enjoying a drink & relaxing!

YBF

Gardening/tidying shed (always find (old) new toys to play with))

Picnic / kick aroud at local park which carries unspoken promise of ice cream from ice cream van

No routine to 'glue' as DP works 7 days per week with shifts - any nice family time is last minute, a bonus but def unorganised!

SOH - stop pretending you share gingerbread. I know you eat it all yourself...

Footy (them not me, I sunbathe/study) and chips in the park on sunny evenings after school.
Family barbecues
Hop Festival, 2 days of semi drunkeness WITH kids, and whole town and their kids, never any trouble despite mucho ale and lovely lovely local food. And the sun ALWAYS shines
Film nights, sometimes just DH and I, something DH, me and DS1 (15)
Preferable with wine (DH and I)
Carpet picnics in front of the tv on winter evenings.
DH making the whole house smell of the mulled wine he makes at Christmas.

one day out a week where we do one thing that I really want to do (usually window shopping) and one thing ds wants (usually the zoo with all the dead animals, otherwise known as the museum)

muffins at starbucks in the bookshop

watching cartoons in bed on saturday morning, me, ds and the dog

saying "not now, I'm just finishing my cup of tea" about 23 times a day

sending postcards to people for no reason, just to say hi, my mum started this when I went to uni.

Dad's Disco (newly downloaded itunes that dh forgot he knew he liked to grooooove to)

baking

facepainting

playfights on the bed

buying trinkety cheapo things like ribbons and buttons which give dd's huge pleasure

sharing a toblerone with the kids on a friday night, after bath but only if they've been good then dancing on the coffee table.
Sharing a bottle of wine and green and blacks chocolate bar with husband after kids gone to bed.
(i'm a complete chocoholic)

We've recently got into the TV family shows - Dr Who and Nancy, then DS's allowed to stay up to see the 'balls' (Lottery)
Stuff we'd have never watched before kids but now its infinitely preferable to Cebeebies. Last weekend we even watched My Family together and actually all laughed. Unbelievable. Having children must destroy loads of brain cells.

What about a thread on the glue that keeps stressed out parents together???

Silly dancing sessions. Even the small boy joins in

Prayer time, before meals and sleeping. Believe it or not.
DS1 (3) prays for his friends and DS2 (2) gives thanks for mummy, dad and brother.
Ahh, when Ds1 was younger, he prayed for the Teletubbies "because they don't have shoes"

Love it Chocfudgecake

Tonight DS (just 2) prayed "Farmer God. Thank you very much. Amen"

DD (4) "Thank you God that we have so, so, so, so, so so, SO much money () that you let Mummy by lots and lots and loads and loads of pink jelly..." (I bought a six pack of jelly pots today!) Makes me think thoug...we DO have so much money really, and lots to be thankful for that we take for granted.

Dr Who.

Football - Premier League or Champions League, and especially Arsenal or Liverpool.

A family meal - every evening in our house without fail.

A trip to our health club where the boys can do what they like and then we have a bite to eat together in the bar.

Dads & Lads - films like Indiana Jones, James Bond, etc... something that doesn't include me, but I'm happy with that!

Christmas and birthdays, although the boys are getting a little older now and these occassions don't hold the same excitement as they once did.

A day out to somewhere like Warwick Castle or the Science Museum in London - when I'm feeling rich!!

A cosy evening in front of the TV after we've all had a busy day.